Leisure Battery Losing Voltage

[basejumper31]

Hi all,

I am posting because I have a problem with my leisure battery. It is losing charge. It is a 230AH 12V lead acid Varta leisure battery, I bought it in December 2015 so it is hardly old. I took it to the French Alps for a month in February, where, admittedly, it got quite cold, and was fully drained (i.e. to the point where my 300 watt inverter started beeping) at least once. But I also have a volt-sensing split charge relay, and I charged it (at least a bit) every time I drove the van, which was most days. It got a good re-charge on the 800 mile journey back to the UK too. Once back in the UK I charged it fully back up (well, until the Halfords car battery charger I'm using to charge it showed a green light for 'full' which took about 30 hours) Am wondering if the France trip was enough to 'damage' it somehow, such that it now loses charge.

For example, The past couple of weeks I have noticed it losing charge (it could have been losing charge a lot longer, I haven't really checked it much prior to this), i.e. I've been charging it with the Halfords car battery charger from the mains at my dad's house, for hours at a time. After charging it in this way I've checked it with a multimeter, then re-checked it say a few hours later, and sure enough, it's dropped by up to 0.4 volts on each occasion.

Concerned that somehow there was a draw on it from somewhere, today I disconnected all wires from the terminals (except a single wire from the -ive terminal going directly to the van chassis, but since nothing at all is connected to the +ive terminal I don't see how this can make a blind bit of difference) I then charged it for about 6 hours, when I stopped charging it, it was at 12.80 volts. I checked it again about 3 hours later, and sure enough, it was down to 12.43 volts! So annoying. I'll be gutted if it is broken/unfixable because it cost me a couple of hundred quid (more than) which is a quite a bit of money to me.

I have heard someone (vandog traveller in his E-book) say that "smart chargers" are the best way to charge a leisure battery, and that they can also recondition a battery (by breaking down sodium deposits or something like this) and am wondering whether I should invest in one of those, and whether it would be able to stop my battery from losing charge. But the smart chargers I've seen are also a couple hundred quid, so it's not something I want to do unless I'm fairly sure it's going to help.

Any and all comments welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading.

 

[ruston]

Have a read through this . It may help you.

A guide to leisure batteries - The Camping and Caravanning Club

If you look at this link you will see that Varta have a good warranty.

http://www.alpha-batteries.co.uk/110-ah-varta-leisure-battery/

 

[PEG]

Hi bud,your voltage,if accurate,is about 60% so not dire,but if your battery became completely depleted,in a frozen environment,it could have sustained damage,and would explain its inability to retain a charge.

Also,your voltage sensing relay,is the most cack-handed,antiquated way to improperly charge your battery.

There are better,more efficient devices available to achieve charging,from your vehicles alternator,which cannot differentiate between the two batteries it is connected to.

I would only recommend a split charge relay,if i looked out of the window,and the town-crier was advertising half-price chimney sweeping using a goose...

 

[Lucien Nunes]

You say the battery is losing charge but you are quoting voltages which are not equivalent to charge levels. A lead-acid battery just off charge may show a terminal voltage as high as 14V which will drop to maybe 13V over an hour or two, but this does not mean any charge is being consumed. Once the battery is on load, the voltage will drop suddenly again say to 12.6V, then plateau and drop slowly over the course of delivering its available capacity down to 10.5-11V

Different constructions show different voltages, gel / AGM is usually higher than flooded. Your voltages sound a bit on the low side as PEG says but without capacity tests at the nominal rate (e.g. how many Ah does it deliver when discharged over 20h) and / or electrolyte S.G. readings and heavy discharge tests, it's not clear from your description whether the battery is actually faulty. If the voltage continues to fall, e.g. if it goes below 12V after a full charge without any load, then there is something wrong.

FWIW, although storage while discharged and excessively deep discharge are both harmful to a lead-acid, the whole point of a leisure battery is that it will withstand the sort of usage you describe. For comparison, the domestic batteries on my boat sometimes do get discharged to 10.5-11V (inverter complaining voltage), occasionally if I leave the fridge on they will drop to compressor shutdown voltage around 9V, and they usually last around 6-8 years before capacity really starts to fall off.

PEG - FWIW this and some other installations that I look after use relay split-charging.
I have a total of 740Ah charged in 3 banks via relays from a normal 14.4V 65A alternator. I get textbook performance from the (wet) batteries and never have to think about them other than to check and top-up a few times a year. I am only on my third engine starter battery since 1989 and in all that time have never once failed to start even after standing 6 months. Sure, there are faster / more sophisticated / more versatile charging systems, but I don't think I can criticise this one too much.